The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (19 page)

“This is a world where fifteen-year-olds classify girls by access to their vaginas! I mean, my God!”

“Calm down, Jo.”

“I don’t want that little pervert abusing her!”

“He won’t do a thing to her. If he does anything, it’ll be with another girl. I’ll bet you anything he did it to impress Hortense! They’re all fantasizing about that little minx. And my son more than any of them. Gary can’t take his eyes off her, and he thinks I don’t notice.”

“When I was young, it was the same thing with Iris. All the boys were crazy about her.”

“Yeah, and look what it got her.”

“I don’t know. She’s got it made, wouldn’t you say?”

“She married well, if you call that making it. But without her husband’s lolly, she’s nobody.”

Joséphine recalled Iris’s aggressive tone at the swimming pool. And the other night, on the phone, when Jo had tried to give Iris ideas for her book. “I’ll help you,” she’d said. “I’ll find you stories and documents. All you’ll have to do is write! Hey, did you know what the word for taxes was in those days? ‘Banalities’! Isn’t that funny?”

But Iris had snapped, “You’re such a drag, Jo! You’re just too—” and hung up.

Too what?
Jo wondered, puzzled at the nastiness behind Iris’s remark. She wouldn’t mention it to Shirley; it would just prove her right.

“She’s nice to the girls.”

“Because it doesn’t cost her anything.”

“You’ve never liked her, and I don’t know why.”

“And that Hortense of yours: if you don’t rein her in, she’ll
end up just like her aunt. Being so-and-so’s wife isn’t a career, Jo. The day Philippe dumps her, Iris won’t have a pot to piss in.”

“He’ll never dump her. He’s madly in love with her.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Jo didn’t answer. Since starting working for Philippe, she’d gotten to know him better. When she went to the law firm on avenue Victor-Hugo, she would peek into his office if the door was open. She’d made him laugh, the last time. Standing in the doorway, she asked, “Do I have to press a remote to get you to look up from your files?” He waved her in.

“Another fifteen minutes, and I’ll rinse you,” said Denise the hairdresser, as she parted the foil strips with the tip of her comb. “Hey, the color is taking really nicely. It’s going to look great!”

She walked off, hips swaying under her pink smock.

“Mylène used to work here, didn’t she?”

“Yes. She did my nails once. Get any news from Antoine?”

“No, but the girls have.”

At the sound of Antoine’s name, Joséphine felt her stomach tense. The loan! Fifteen hundred euros every month to Monsieur Faugeron! Once she paid the January installment, there would be nothing left of her 8,012 euros. Jo had spent her last penny on gifts for Gary and Shirley. She figured that at this point a few euros more or less wouldn’t make much difference.

She slumped in the salon chair, messing up her rows of silver twists.

“Are you okay?” Shirley looked worried.

“Yeah.”

“No, you’re not. You’re as white as a sheet. Do you want a magazine?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Shirley handed her a copy of
Elle.
Joséphine opened it but couldn’t read. All she could think about was the loan repayment.
Fifteen hundred euros!

Denise came to get Shirley to rinse her out.

“It will be your turn in five minutes, madame,” she said.

Joséphine nodded vaguely and flipped through the magazine. Suddenly she shrieked: “Shirley, Shirley! Look!”

She ran over to the sink, waving the magazine in the air.

Her head back, eyes closed, Shirley said, “I can’t exactly read at the moment, Jo.”

Joséphine was waving the magazine around, and Shirley had to crane her neck around to see it.

“Look at the man in the photograph!”

Shirley squinted.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“I said he wasn’t bad. You want me to fall on my knees?”

“Shirley, it’s the man from the library! The guy in the duffel coat! He’s a model. And the blond woman in the photo is the one from the crosswalk. They were shooting that photo when we saw them. God, he’s so handsome!”

“It’s weird, but on the crosswalk he didn’t make much of an impression on me.”

“You’re just not that into men.”

“Correction: I used to love them too much. That’s why I keep them at a distance.”

“I’m going to cut out the photo and put it in my wallet. Oh, Shirley, it’s a sign!”

“A sign of what?”

“A sign that he’s going to come back into my life.”

“You actually believe that kind of crap?”

Joséphine nodded.
Yes, and I talk to the stars.

“It’s your turn, madame,” said Denise. “Follow me, and we’ll rinse you out. You’re going to be a new woman.”

Joséphine leaned her head back against the basin.
Maybe I’ll turn out like Iseult la Blonde, with her gleaming golden locks.

The big hand of the clock came to rest at half past five. Iris found herself watching the door anxiously. What if he didn’t come?

On the phone, the head of the detective agency had been courteous and precise. Iris explained what she needed. He asked a few questions, then said, “Do you know our rates? We charge two hundred and forty euros a day during the week, double on weekends.”

“That’s fine.”

“Very well, madame. In that case, let’s make a first appointment, say a week from now. It should be in a neighborhood you don’t usually visit, where you’re not likely to run into anyone you know.”

She suggested the thirteenth arrondissement, and they decided on the café on avenue des Gobelins near rue Pirandello. To Iris it sounded mysterious and clandestine, even slightly louche.

“Our man will be easy to recognize. He’ll be wearing a Burberry rain hat. He’ll say, ‘It’s freezing out there,’ and you’ll answer, ‘You can say that again.’”

“I’ll be there. Good-bye, monsieur.”

It had been so easy! She had hesitated for so long before making the call, and then suddenly it was all arranged.

She looked at the people seated around her. Students reading; a couple of women, waiting; a few men drinking at the bar and staring into space. She heard a coffee percolator, orders being shouted.

At five thirty on the dot, a man wearing a plaid Burberry hat entered the café. He was young and good-looking, with an easy smile.

The private detective glanced once around the café, and his eyes quickly found Iris’s. She nodded in acknowledgment. He pretended to look surprised as he approached.

“It’s freezing out there,” he said quietly.

“You can say that again.”

He shook her hand and gestured that he’d like to sit down on the chair next to her, if she would move her purse and coat.

“It’s probably not a good idea to leave your purse on a chair for all the world to see,” he said, noting the Vuitton logo.

Iris waved away his concern and looked meaningfully at her watch.

“I can tell you’re eager to get started, madame, so I’ll begin. As you requested, we followed your husband, Philippe Dupin, continuously from Thursday, December 11, at 8:10 a.m. from in front of your residence, until last night, December 20, at
10:30 p.m., when he went back into your residence. I was assisted by two colleagues.”

“So I gather,” said Iris in a dull voice.

“Your husband keeps to a very regular routine, so following him was quite easy. I was able to identify most of the people he met except for one man, who is giving us some trouble.”

“Ah,” said Iris, feeling her heart speed up.

“A man he saw on two occasions, three days apart, in a café at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle. The first was at eleven thirty a.m., the other at three p.m. Each meeting lasted an hour, at most. The man showed Monsieur Dupin various things—photographs, documents, newspaper clippings. At these meetings your husband nodded, let the other man do most of the talking, then asked many questions. The man listened and took notes.”

“Took notes?”

“Yes. So I figured it must be a business meeting. I managed to obtain a Xerox of his datebook—don’t ask how, we have our ways—but there is no record of those meetings anywhere in it. And he didn’t mention them to his secretary or to his closest colleague, Caroline Vibert.”

“How can you know all this?” asked Iris, shocked by such an invasion into her husband’s private life.

“As I said, madame, we have our ways. But in short, I know these are not business meetings.”

“Do you have pictures of the man in question?”

“Yes.” The detective pulled a sheaf of photos from a folder, and spread them out for her. Iris leaned over them, her heart pounding. The man looked to be in his thirties, had short brown
hair, thin lips, and wore tortoiseshell glasses. He was neither handsome nor ugly. The kind of man who could fit in anywhere. Iris racked her brain trying to remember him, but couldn’t recall ever seeing him before.

“I followed the man after both meetings. The first time, he flew off to Basel; the second, to London. That’s all I could find out. I could learn more, but we would have to follow him.”

“So he came to Paris especially to see my husband.”

“We don’t know why he is making the trips. We could find out, but following someone that way is a major undertaking. You should think about it and call if you want us to go ahead.”

“Yes,” replied Iris distractedly. “That’s probably best.”

There was still one question she was dying to ask, and she didn’t dare. She needed to summon her courage. She hesitated, sipped some water.

“I need to ask you . . . ,” she stammered. “I’d like to know if there were any gestures . . .”

“Physical contact that might suggest intimacy between them? No, none. But there was definitely a shared understanding. The men spoke to each other very directly. Each seemed to know exactly what he expected of the other.”

Iris glanced at the clock on the café wall. It was 6:15. She’d found out all she was going to, she realized, and felt suddenly let down. She was both disappointed and relieved not to have learned more. So Bérengère’s gossip had been wrong, thank God. But for some reason, Iris now felt vaguely threatened.

“I need to think about all this,” she murmured.

“Of course, madame. I’m at your disposal if—”

“Thank you,” Iris interrupted, without looking at him.

She extended a hand absentmindedly, and he shook it. She watched the detective walk away.

The night before, Philippe had come back to sleep in their bedroom again. He merely said, “I think Alexandre is worried. It’s not good for him to see us sleeping apart.” He spoke in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, but for the first time, Iris thought she detected a note of indifference, almost of contempt.

Iris watched the man in the plaid hat turn the corner. Somehow, and by any means within her power, she had to regain her husband’s esteem.

I
t was 6:30 when the two women left the hairdresser’s. Shirley grabbed Jo’s arm and forced her to look at her reflection in a furniture store window. “I want you to see how smashing you are. Look!”

Joséphine looked at her reflection and had to admit she didn’t look bad. The hairdresser had layered her hair in a way that caught the light, making her look younger.

“It’s true. That was a good idea, Shirley. I never go to the hairdresser. I always thought it was a waste of money.”

“What about me? How do I look?” Shirley said, spinning around and patting her short platinum curls. She lifted the collar of her long coat, titled her head back, and launched into an old Queen tune.

Shirley skipped down the empty streets with their cold, gray buildings, her long legs leaping, singing for the pleasure of having made Joséphine beautiful.

“From now on, I’m treating you to the hairdresser every month!”

A sharp gust of wind interrupted her song-and-dance performance. She took Jo’s arm for warmth, and they walked along for a moment without speaking. Night had fallen, and the few pedestrians they met hurried blindly past, heads down, eager to get home.